The writings of George Washington; being his correspondence, addresses, messages, and other papers, official and private, selected and published from the original manuscripts; with a life of the author, notes and illustrations. By Jared Sparks.

ART. 50.] LIFE OF WASHINGTON. 385
them at the end of the war. When they compared
their long services and sufferinigs with the sacrifices of
those, who had been engaged only in the pursuits of
private life, and with the rewards hitherto received,
they felt that they had claims, as well on the gratitude
and generosity, as on the justice of their country. At
the same time, various circumstances conspired to make
them apprehensive, that these claims would neither be
adequately met nor duly estimated. Congress had no
funds; the States were extremely backward in applying the only remedy by an effectual system of taxation; and the resource of foreign loans was nearly
exhausted. It was natural, that this state of things,
added to long arrearages of pay, and accounts unsettled
and without any security for a future liquidation of
them, should cause much excitement and concern.
"To judge rightly of the motives, which produced
this uneasy temper in the army, it will be necessary
to recollect that the resolution of October, 1780, granting half-pay for life to the officers, stood on the mere
faith of a government possessing no funds, which would
enable it to perform its engagements. From requisitions alone, to be made on sovereign states, were the
supplies to be drawn, which should satisfy these meritorious public creditors; and the ill success attending
these requisitions, while the dangers of war were still
impending, furnished melancholy presages of their unproductiveness in time of peace. In addition to this
reflection, of itself sufficient to disturb the tranquillity
at first occasioned by this resolution, there were other
considerations of decisive influence. The dispositions
manifested by Congress were so unfriendly to the halfpay establishment, as to extinguish the hope, that
any funds they might acquire would be applied to that
object. Since the passage of the resolution, the articles
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